Wings of Refuge

by Lynn Austin

  Jake stared at the radio in stunned disbelief. “If that’s true, then our fortifications must have fallen. The only way the Egyptians could possibly be on the East Bank is if our line of defense collapsed.”

  “But how could it collapse? We have the best equipment and—”

  “Hannah, it’s a holiday. Nearly everyone was home on leave except for the newest recruits.”

  “Oh, dear God,” she moaned. The unimaginable had happened. Egypt and Syria had declared war on the holiest day of the year.

  Jake got up from the table and disappeared into the bedroom. When he didn’t come back right away, Hannah followed him. He had already put on his uniform and was packing the rest of his gear into his kit bag. He looked up. She quickly turned away so he wouldn’t see her tears.

  At six o’clock that evening, Prime Minister Golda Meir came on the air to make a speech to her nation. The three of them gathered around the kitchen table again to listen.

  “At two o’clock this afternoon,” Mrs. Meir began, “both Egypt and Syria crossed the cease-fire lines and opened hostilities on land and in the air—” She was interrupted by a warning signal, followed by more coded mobilization orders. When Jake closed his eyes, Hannah knew that one of them had been his.

  “Where, Jake?” she asked. He held up his hand, asking her to wait as the Prime Minister resumed her speech.

  “I have no doubt that no one will give in to panic. We must be prepared for any burden and sacrifice demanded for the defense of our very existence, our freedom, and our independence.”

  Hannah remembered what Jake had told her after the Six-Day War—how he had been terrified during the battle, how he hoped and prayed that he would never have to fight again. But he would willingly shoulder the burden of combat, making that sacrifice for her and Rachel.

  “How could we not have known?” Jake asked when the speech ended. “How could we have let ourselves be taken by surprise like this? Where was our intelligence?”

  Hannah reached for his hand. “Jake? Where are they sending you?” His answer was barely audible.

  “The Golan Heights.”

  She took a deep breath as she tried to control her tears and her trembling voice. “To fight against the Syrians with their Soviet-made equipment?” she asked bitterly.

  “The Soviets are backing and supplying Egypt, too,” he said. “They’ve had six years to analyze the last war and learn from it. And this time they were the ones who used the element of surprise.” He bent to put on his boots, preparing to leave. They both knew that it was vitally important for every able-bodied man to join the fighting as soon as possible, but Hannah longed to cling to him, to beg him to delay his departure just a little longer.

  “Do you think Jordan and Iraq will fight us, too?” she asked.

  “It may not matter,” he said, tugging his bootlaces. “Even if no other Arab country declares war, the Syrian and Egyptian troops outnumber us six-to-one. We’re outnumbered in armor four-to-one.”

  Hannah and Jake looked at each other, then at Rachel, as if realizing at the same moment that she hadn’t spoken for a long time, that they had been voicing their fears in front of her. Rachel’s eyes swam with tears.

  “I’ll pray for you every day, Abba, and ask God to keep you safe.” Jake pulled her into his arms and let her bury her head on his shoulder.

  “If it’s His will, Rachel . . . we must always yield to His will. Otherwise, we’re putting ourselves in God’s place, telling Him how to run the universe. No one must sit in God’s place.”

  “But why would it be God’s will for you . . . to die?” she asked as her tears were unleashed.

  “Who can know the mind of the Almighty One? Many good men died in the last war, Rachel, and we don’t know why. We can’t see His design because we stand too close to it.”

  “What do you mean, Abba?”

  “Here, come with me.” He led her to the cluttered desk in the living room where Hannah’s artifacts were piled in jumbled disarray. Hannah watched from the doorway as he sorted through potsherds and jar handles until he found what he wanted. He held up a small bean-sized square of green stone. “What is this?” he asked.

  “A mosaic stone,” Rachel answered.

  “Yes, yes, but what is it? The eye of a fish? A piece of the border? Part of a flower?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Neither of us do because we can’t see the whole mosaic. We don’t know what the artist’s design was or where this piece fit into it. But you’ve seen mosaics, Rachel. You know how beautiful and intricate they can be, forming a picture that looks whole and complete from a distance, even though it’s really made of tiny individual squares of stone.”

  He gently laid the stone in the palm of her hand and cupped his strong ones around hers. “We are those individual stones in God’s design, Rachel. The Master Artist cuts us and shapes us so that we’ll each fit into our place. The final picture is the redemption of the world. God is always working toward that redemption. I want to be part of it, and I know you do, too. We have to trust that no matter what happens to us, God is bringing redemption from it. We have to trust His unfailing love and take refuge in it.”

  Jake left a few minutes later. He said good-bye quickly, knowing it would be harder on all of them if he prolonged it. Hannah held her husband close, kissed him, and then he was gone.

  Rather than face the emptiness he left behind, she decided to walk back to the synagogue with Rachel for the closing service of Yom Kippur. It began at twilight and lasted until the stars came out. She wasn’t surprised to find the synagogue packed.

  Hannah took Rachel’s hand in hers as they stood for prayers and heard the reassuring words from Isaiah, “Those who trust in the Lord shall exchange strength for weariness.” Together they recited the Sh’ma Yisrael, their creed of faith: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” But Hannah shuddered, remembering Jake’s words, as the rabbi gave the call for God’s kingdom and His redemption to be made known in all the earth. She didn’t want God’s will if it meant taking Jake away from her forever. She wanted her will—that they would win the war quickly, that their lives would go on the way they always had, that Jake would come home to her again.

  The service ended with the cry of faith, “God is Lord!” as the shofar sounded its final blast. But Hannah’s heart wouldn’t allow her to speak the words.

  * * *

  As the war dragged into its second week, a great cloud of gloom seemed to descend over the nation. There would be no easy victory as there had been during the last war. Each inch of land seemed hard-won as the Israelis slowly pushed the invaders back toward the cease-fire lines. Great Britain refused to resupply Israel, while the Soviet Union sent massive supplies of tanks, antitank missiles, and planes to Israel’s enemies. Any Israeli successes were quickly canceled out as new equipment arrived in Egypt and Syria to replace what they had lost. The end was nowhere in sight.

  Israeli citizens had been asked not to use the telephone except for emergencies, which is why Hannah was so surprised when hers suddenly rang. Devorah sounded breathless on the other end. “I think I’m going into labor,” she said.

  “Now? Isn’t it too early?”

  “Yes, two weeks early. Would you mind coming over to watch the kids? My mother can’t get down here from Galilee.”

  Hannah’s bags were already packed and sitting by the door in case she needed them for the air raid shelter. She and Rachel grabbed them and ran the few blocks to Ben and Devorah’s apartment. Eleven-year-old Itzak let them in. His mother lay panting on the sofa.

  “Sorry . . . I would have timed this baby better . . . if I’d known there was going to be another war.”

  “Listen, Devorah, didn’t your last baby come very quickly? You’d better let me take you to the hospital. Itzak, Sam, and Rachel can watch the two little ones for an hour or so.” She helped Devorah into
Ben’s car and raced through the streets, praying that there wouldn’t be any air raid sirens to terrify the children while she was gone. Devorah’s contractions were alarmingly close together, and Hannah added another quick prayer that she wouldn’t have to pull the car over to the side of the street and deliver the baby herself. They were met outside the emergency room door by an orderly with a wheelchair.

  “I’ll come inside as soon as I park the car,” Hannah promised.

  “No . . . I’d rather you went home to be with the kids.” Devorah smiled weakly and added, “I’ve done this before.”

  Hannah drove a bit more cautiously on the return trip to the apartment. Devorah and Ben had moved to a larger one four years ago after their fourth child, Miriam, was born. It didn’t seem possible that little Rebeccah, whom Devorah had been expecting during the last war, was six years old already. Hannah envied Devorah’s fertility. The large family she and Jake longed for had never arrived.

  Devorah phoned while they were eating dinner to tell them that she’d had a baby boy. “He only weighs two and a half kilos, so they have him in an incubator. Otherwise, he checked out just fine.”

  “You sound tired, Dev.”

  “I am, but not from the delivery. Wait until you’ve fed, clothed, and chased my brood around that apartment for a day or two and you’ll understand why I’m looking forward to a nice long rest in the hospital.”

  Hannah laughed. “Thanks a lot, sweetie.”

  “Oh, one more thing—Ben and I never settled on a name before he left. If you manage to get ahold of him, tell him to make up his mind. They need to know what to put on the birth certificate.”

  Getting through to Ben in a war zone proved nearly impossible. Hannah left phone messages at his command center, but since it wasn’t an emergency, she was told not to expect a return call any time soon. In the meantime, she and the children nicknamed the baby Katan because he was so small.

  The day before Devorah and the baby were due home from the hospital, a Sergeant Givati telephoned. Thinking it might be a message from Ben at last, Hannah shouted for the children to quiet down.

  “Is this Mrs. Benjamin Rosen?” Sergeant Givati asked.

  “No, I’m Ben’s cousin, Hannah Rahov. Mrs. Rosen is in the hospital. I’ve been trying to reach Ben to tell him she just had a baby.”

  The long pause that followed terrified Hannah. “Hello? Are you still there?” she cried.

  Sergeant Givati cleared his throat. “Could you please relay the message to her that Captain Rosen has also been hospitalized?”

  “What happened? Is Ben all right?”

  “This report says that his injuries aren’t critical.”

  Hannah sank into the nearest chair in relief. “Where is he? May I see him?”

  “He was transferred to the military hospital here in Jerusalem this morning, but you’ll have to talk to his doctor before you can visit.”

  “Tell him I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  Hannah convinced a neighbor to keep an eye on the children while she raced across town to visit Ben. She needed to see for herself how he was before breaking the news to Devorah and the children. It seemed to take forever for them to locate Ben’s doctor, but when he finally arrived, Hannah was alarmed to discover that the man was a psychiatrist. He steered her into his office to talk.

  “Captain Rosen’s physical injuries aren’t critical,” he began. “They’re not the reason he was hospitalized. I’m afraid he has suffered a very serious emotional breakdown . . . from battle stress.”

  “A breakdown?” Hannah didn’t believe it. They had the wrong person. “Ben has never been afraid of anything in his life!”

  The doctor removed his glasses and laid them on his desk. “Captain Rosen’s case is somewhat unusual. While the syndrome is most commonly triggered by fear, or perhaps horror at the carnage of war, your cousin’s breakdown was triggered by extreme rage. He was not afraid to throw himself into battle—quite the opposite. He blazed into it as if he didn’t care if he lived or died. I’m told that he fought very valiantly, too—if somewhat wildly. But he was endangering his men and himself by taking unreasonable risks and defying orders. They only got him to stop when he ran out of ammunition.”

  Once again, Hannah felt afraid. “How can I help?”

  “Could you bring his wife here? We had him transferred to this hospital with the hope that if he saw his family he might remember all the reasons he has to live.”

  “She’s in another hospital. She just had a baby. But Ben and I are very close, more like brother and sister than cousins. I’d like to see him.”

  “All right,” the doctor said after a moment. He stood and they began walking down the corridor. “Captain Rosen still hasn’t talked about what triggered his rage. He either can’t or won’t discuss it with me.” They stopped again outside the door to Ben’s ward. “Please don’t be alarmed when you see him. He had to be sedated . . . and restrained.”

  Hannah watched Ben from the doorway for a moment before going inside. He wore a bandage above his right eye, and his face and hands appeared sunburned with first-degree burns. He was awake and restless in spite of the sedation, his hands trembling, his body twitching and jerking against the restraints. She drew a deep breath, forcing back her tears. Ben was alive. He would be all right.

  “Shalom, Ben,” she said as she bent to kiss his forehead. He stared at her for a long moment before recognition dawned.

  “Hannah!” But instead of being pleased to see her, he looked wild-eyed, frightened.

  “How are you, sweetie?” When he simply stared at her, she decided she would have to do all the talking. “Listen, I’ve come with some good news. You’re a father again. Devorah had a baby boy. They’re both fine, but she wants to know what to name him.”

  Ben went pale beneath his livid burns as if the news had unnerved him. His reaction was all wrong. He loved his children. He had looked forward to being a father again. “Ben? What’s wrong?”

  “How long ago?”

  “Three days. But don’t worry, the baby is fine except for a little jaundice. Dev is fine, too. They’ll probably come home tomorrow. Rachel and I have been staying at your place, taking care of the other kids. Boy, I don’t know how that woman does it full time. She deserves a medal. I’m afraid I’ve managed to trash your nice, neat apartment. . . .”

  “You’re at my apartment?”

  His voice had the tone of slowly dawning horror, as if the conclusion he was drawing terrified him rather than cheered him. Hannah couldn’t understand it. She decided to keep talking in the hope that her joyful news would finally register.

  “Yes, it was easier for all of us. Your apartment is so much bigger than mine. I promised Devorah I’d stay another week and help her with the baby after she comes home tomorrow. Her mother can’t get down here. But Dev wants to know what to name the baby. She said you never settled on a name, and the poor kid really needs one. I said she should call him Ben Junior since the little guy looks just like you. He even has your bald spot on top and—”

  “You haven’t been home—back to your own apartment—since Monday morning?” His words came out like a drowning man’s, gasping for air. Hannah went cold with fear.

  “No, there was no sense running back and forth. . . .”

  “Then you don’t know . . . you haven’t been told!” Ben’s voice caught as he choked back a sob.

  Hannah lowered herself to the edge of his bed as she felt her knees go weak. She stared at her cousin and knew in an instant what had triggered his rage. Oh, God. Don’t say it, Ben. Please don’t say it.

  Ben tried to cover his face so she wouldn’t read the truth in his eyes, but his wrists were fastened to the bed rails. He closed his eyes and turned his head away. Hannah grabbed his shoulders, shaking him.

  “I haven’t been told what? Is it Jake? Tell me!”

  “Please . . . don’t make me . . .”

  “Tell me, Ben, or I swear I’ll beat it out of y
ou! What happened!” Her own fear and rage had so overwhelmed her that she no longer cared about his.

  Ben slowly stammered out the story, every word drawn out torturously.

  “There was a skirmish. I took a hit with some shrapnel . . . above my eye. Jake thought . . . he said it needed stitches.”

  Hannah didn’t want to hear it, but she knew that she had to—from Ben if he had witnessed it, not from some falsely compassionate government messenger sent to break the news to her.

  “When the Syrian tanks withdrew and there was a lull in the fighting, Jake made me go to the first-aid station. I didn’t want to go. I told him I was okay. I wanted to stay with our squad.”

  No . . . no . . . no . . . The words rang in Hannah’s heart like a death knell.

  “There were so many wounded at the station . . . all worse off than me. I couldn’t help it that I was gone too long . . . that I got back too late . . .”

  She touched the bandage above Ben’s eye, as if her fingers could magically heal the wound and change the outcome of what Ben was trying to tell her.

  “The order to advance came through while I was gone. . . . Six centurion tanks from our division were sent ahead to attack.”

  “Jake’s?” she whispered.

  Ben nodded. “I was too late . . . I had to stay behind in one of the tanks that was supposed to cover them . . . even though we were no good to them. We were no good to them at all!”

  Ben was describing her premonition. Hannah watched it happen as vividly as if she stood beside him on the Golan Heights.

  “As they neared the top of the hill, a hidden antitank battery opened fire. The Syrians had Russian-made Sagger antitank missiles powerful enough to break through armor plate. . . . There was nothing I could do. . . . They took a direct hit . . . all six of our tanks . . . exploded—”

  “No!” Hannah screamed as she felt the impact, the heat, the searing shrapnel.

  “I had to watch them all die . . . and there was nothing I could do!” Ben writhed in bed, fighting the restraints and the drugs that held him back as his rage rekindled. “But I blasted them to Sheol, Hannah! I got the monsters who did that to Jake! I would kill all of them if they would just let me out of this bed! Let me go back there!”